China's women beach volleyball duo march into top 8
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E-mail Xinhua, August 4, 2012
China's sole gold hope Xue Chen and Zhang Xi advanced into the quarterfinals of the women's beach volleyball by beating a Russian duo 2-0 in the London Olympic Games on Saturday.
The bronze medallists of Beijing Olympics Xue/Zhang easily breezed past Evgenia Ukolova/Ekaterina Khomyakova 21-12, 21-11 in a full-packed Horse Guard Parade venue, central London within half an hour.
"This is the best match we have played so far. We have made full preparations, watching the videos of their (Russian) play, and it's totally worthwhile," said Zhang, 26, the senior of the Chinese pair.
Xue actually expected a tougher game and she still need time to digest the fast win.
"The Russians should play better. Actually, they are quite good in service and attack, but it seemed they came across the same situation of our first match, which we completely failed to give what we could do," said Xue.
In truth, Xue's guess is exactly what the Russian defender Khomyakova's thinking about.
"I don't know what happened. I don't know why we lost. I don't know why we made so many mistakes. We need to figure it out in the future," said Khomyakova, waving no to more question request.
The Chinese duo, the second seed of the tournament, have exhibited their consistent team work, attacking skills and solid defense, while the Russians failed to cope with their fast attack and committed chains of errors, especially on service.
The Chinese marked five ace serves and six successful blocks, while the Russian got one point from service and nil in blocking.
Xue/Zhang started strongly to lead 7-4 and soon expanded their advantage to 18-9 in the first set. The Russians' two spike errors sent the set point to the Chinese side, when Xue Chen served into the net and Ukolova's spike helped Russia to save two set points. However, with another service error, Russia surrendered the opener 21-12.
The Chinese dominated the court 5-1 before they staged an impressive 11-3 run to expand the advantage to 16-4. The Russians fought back 11-19 with a 7-3 run. But that's end of their score as Xue took the last two points and the match with an unanswered spike and an ace serve.
Losing the opener of the tournament, Xue and Zhang came back strongly to book a top 16 berth with a 2-1 win-loss record during the group stage.
They will face the world No. 13 Austrian sisters Doris/Stefanie Schwaiger.
"We played a few games with them this season. They are really good defenders. So, we need more patience and absolutely can't be panic when our attacking is not effective. That's their plan, I know," said Zhang Xi.
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